Interesting Wildlife Encounter

One of the folks I work with posted these pictures and the following write-up on our bikes mailing list. Normally when you hear of folks interacting with nature on a bike ride it's something like a mountain biker avoiding a snake, or a road rider barreling into a deer or bear on a descent. It had to be pretty amazing to witness something like this first hand:

"Koalas are not social and don't come out of trees very often. They don't normally drink water at all. All their food and water comes from the eucalyptus leaves that they eat. That's why they sleep about 22 hours of the day. Their caloric and liquid intake is not enough to keep them awake more than a couple of hours. But Australia’s major drought has changed all that."

Omnium

Well the San Diego Omnium is over. I went into this with what I felt were realistic expectations and a positive attitude. I figured I could do top 10 in the time trial, hang on for as long as possible in the road race and possibly pick up a point or two, and then try for some of the primes and a top 10 in the crit.

Time Trial:

For those not familiar with this race, the TT is 2 laps of Fiesta Island, pretty much flat as a pancake. The total mileage is something like 8 miles.

I got 14th (3 omnium points), not anything too bad or too good. I did ride the same time (20 minutes) that I did back before I hurt myself, which was somewhat encouraging. It was a windy day out there, which doesn't help the power challenged like me either. What was most amazing was some of the times that people put up. The guy who won in category 4 put up a time that would have been second in the pro race. While I didn't have my speedometer working on the day, I'm sure I rarely broke 30 miles and hour when the wind was in my favor. Some of these guys were averaging close to 29 mph for the entire time trial.

Road Race:

This race is two, 22 mile laps of one of the toughest stretches of road you'll ever race on (at least in San Diego). The first 11 miles of each lap is pretty much downhill. The first time I ever rode this course, I at first was enjoying the descent. Then it dawned on me that I'd better really enjoy the descent because all those hills were going to be climbed on the way back up to the finish. The last 11 miles of each lap are pretty much uphill the whole way, something like 1800 feet of climbing I believe. What's worse, you're almost always climbing into a strong headwind.

While I knew that the road race was going to be a real challenge for me, I had hoped that I'd be able to at least hold on to the group through the first lap. Doing so would have given me the chance to at least help my team-mates out a bit on the descent/rollers of lap 2, which it turned out would have been very valuable as our climber did get dropped on the second lap descent. If I were there I could have ensured that this didn't happen. I knew for sure that once we started the climbing of lap 2, the climbers were going to hammer it and leave me in their dust. From there I was expecting to gut it out to the finish.

The reality however was that I got dropped near the top of the first big climb of the first lap. As we were going up the climb I was looking down at my power meter and seeing numbers like 340 or 350 watts. I know for sure that I can't hold that sort of power up 11 miles of climbing, so I wasn't too surprised when I got popped off the back. With a giant headwind and no one around me to work with, there was going to be no catching back on to the main field. It became me vs. myself for the rest of the first lap.

When I got to the end of the first lap, a couple guys had caught up to me, so we started to work together. As we worked our way down the descent we caught one more guy. Eventually when we got to the rollers near the bottom of the descent, we were into the sort of riding that I can do really well, so I hammered it for a few miles. At that point me and another guy had managed to pull away from the rest of our small group, so we both worked together to keep our gap to the finish. In the end I finished 25th.

It did make me proud to know that I rode this race as hard as I could possibly ride it. While it sucks to not finish with the group, this race and the 2 laps of the course I did last Saturday showed me point blank that I'm just not physically able to ride at this level any more. When you can't pull up well with your foot, it's like you're racing with a 25 pound weight straped to your back.

Criterium:

As much as I enjoy criteriums, the Huennekens course is one that I don't have much time for. With only one real corner, the race is pretty much a 40 minute drag race. The points in this race are awarded both at the finish and via two point primes during the race. So if you fancy yourself as a GC guy, it's really important to be in a good spot to go for these key primes. Back when I finished 3rd overall in cat 5 a couple years ago, I was able to get some points on both the primes and finish top 5 in the race, which helped me move up from 4th to 3rd on GC.

Our team went into this race with one of our guys, Max, in 5th place, so we wanted to make sure we could get him to the front for the point primes and the finish. I had him at the front for the first point prime, but I'm not sure that he ended up getting anything. I nearly had one of the $25 primes, but my lack of speed once again foiled me. I got a good jump on the field and was out front coming to the line, but someone managed to sprint up and catch me. For the finish we had a 5 man train going with a lap to go. I was there in 4th position working as hard as I could, but again it didn't really come together for Max. In the end another of our guys got second, so we got something positive out of it.

Revisiting my goals for the race; I came close to a top 10 in the TT, didn't hold on too long in the road race, and came close to a prime, while worked hard for the team in the criterium.

The bottom line for me in all of this is that I can't keep putting all the hours I put into training to race if I simply can't physically do it. Sure, I could continue to show up at races each week and finish in the top 20. I'm not sure what the point would be however. Instead, I'm going to re-purpose my training time and focus much more on getting my left leg back to 100%. Sad news for all my groupies I know, but that's how it's going to be until I feel like I'm 100% or at least much, much closer.

I will say that my ability to move my toes and foot is definitely getting better. Until the last month or so I haven't felt like doing a lot of dorsi-flexion specific exercise would be of any benefit because if my nerve can't fire the muscles, what would the point. I have been using my electrostimulator a fair bit, that's definitely helped get the muscles at the top of my shin to come back a bit. Hopefully now is the time when finding some good strength building exercises will be of real benefit.

Road Bike

Joel had asked for a picture of my road bike. Since my baby is kinda run down (decals are faded, odd little dent here and there, etc) I thought I'd instead show her in her somewhat original glory. This is Specialized's stock SWorks E5 photo:



I bought my bike as a frameset on eBay back in 2006. I then bought the 2007 Campagnolo Record group, a FSA seatpost, better stem, etc.

These days it seems that everything out there is carbon. Even cheap, crappy bikes are using carbon frames. When I put this bike together I had a few things I was looking for:

1. Something very stiff. I couldn't give a crap about the ride quality, not that it's bad on this bike, but for how many miles I ride a week my ass is plenty tough.
2. Something that wouldn't splinter into fragments WHEN it was in a crash. I've seen way to many carbon frames disintegrate upon impact. I don't need to be riding around a criterium worrying about what's going to happen to my bike when I crash.
3. Something that wasn't going to cost a fortune.

The reason I bring up carbon being on everything is that in my experience, unless you're willing to pay big money for a top of the line carbon frame, you're going to get something that resembles a wet noodle. Or at least after a year of hammering on it, it's going to. That was my experience with my Specialized Roubaix. When I bought it I thought it was a great deal that I got a $2500 bike with a carbon frame. After a year of riding it, I could really notice the frame flexing whenever I hammered on it. It became clear to me that I could have bought a top of the line aluminum bike for less money and been much more happy.

So if you're the sort of person that rides their bike every now and then for the fun of it, yah, a cheap carbon bike is great because it's probably going to be more comfortable than an aluminum bike, but if you're going to race, or ride more than 10 hours a week I think you're going to be more happy on something made of aluminum, titanium, or even steel.

I found a mistress

For a while now there's been a joke going around work that my road bike is my wife. It all got started when my boss asked me if he could borrow my bike for the weekend. He asked me this while straddling my road bike that just happened to be in with me at work that day. To try to get across to him just how offended I was that he was both standing over my bike and was asking me something as outlandish as he was; I explained to him that asking me to take my bike home was the equivalent of me asking him if I could take his wife home for the weekend. From that point on he's referred to my bike as my wife.

So, I guess one could consider my new Transition to be my new mistress. Check 'er out:



Until last week I had no intention of buying a new bike. Until last week's SDBC club night at one of our sponsors, B+L Bike and Sport, that is. As I was putting together last week's SDBC weekly update I was adding the link for the "too good to be published" deals for the event. Looking through the deals, I was amazed at some of the bike pricing B+L was offering us. I won't say exactly how much I ended up paying for this bike, but lets just say that it was significantly less than the already extremely discounted price that the bike was selling for in the shop. The deal on offer was way too good to pass by, especially for the level of bike you get with the Expert model. It's the same frame as the Pro model, just with some lesser components.

I ended up taking my old Kestrel Airfoil in and getting my Campy Centaur drive train, Vision aerobars, Campy shifters, etc. moved on to the new frame. I can't wait for Tuesday evening and my planned TT workout on Fiesta Island.

Redlands - Won a Prime! - 23rd

Redlands is probably one of the most enjoyable crits you'll find out there. Check out the course map below. Corner 1 is something close to a 150 degree turn around a pointed curb, turn 2 and 3 are back to back 90 degree right and lefts, and then you've got two fast, open corners in 4 and 5. One might expect a lot of crashes on this course, in general however I've found it to be really safe.



We had 3 guys in the race today. It kinda worked out where we each played the role of one of the three bears today:

• For Alcino, things were just right. After his usual bout of nerves prior to the race he stood on the gas at the end and finished second.
• For EPete (Euro Pete), things were a little too hot. He crashed with a few laps to go. Pete rode really hard during the race and he's one of our best finishers, so it sucked that his day ended early.
• For me, things were a little cold, maybe more lukewarm. It would have been nice to get a top 10. Getting a prime win however was a really nice reward.

I got my prime the only way I knew I could, attack way early. As we headed up the home stretch and the announcer called for a prime everyone let up for a bit. I was up near the front, so I decided to go for it. I calmly rolled up to 3rd or so and then hammered it. I got through turn 1 really well, as I got back on the gas I looked under my arm to see how close the field was behind me. As long as I've been back racing, each time I've tried to jump away, I've looked back only to see the entire field right on my wheel. This time I looked back to a 80 foot gap. Wow, finally something encouraging! So I just kept hammering. I was able to hold my advantage to the start/finish and take the prime. There's nothing like rolling across the start/finish and hearing the announcer call out your name and sponsor.

From there I got back in the field and got my heart rate down from 192.

The finish was pretty strategic for a cat 4 race. Normally cat 4 races end in a mass drag race to the finish. With a couple laps to go Andrew Jessup, one of the really strong cat 4s attacked. Most of the time these sorts of efforts are pulled back after a lap or so, Andrew however is a really strong rider and easily could have turned his bravery into a win (he time trialed for 20 minutes to a win at Imperial). With 2/3 of a lap to go we managed to catch him. Right away a little guy from Team Possibilities took off. Alcino saw him go, but unfortunately didn't react quite fast enough. Alcino nearly caught him at the line, but just ran out of road.

The reason I bring this up is that I'd really like to see myself be able to get up to the front and pull these sorts of guys back for Alcino. Jumps, changes in pace, etc. used to be one of the things I did best. If I'm not going to be winning races, I would at least like to make a meaningful contribution. If I'd been able to get up there and help Alcino he would have won. I'm not there quite yet however. Before I can worry about covering attacks, I first have to be at the front at the end of the race.

All in all a good day.

Tour of Murrieta - Perspective

For me, Murrieta was an experience in mental adversity much more than physical adversity. Things got off to a reasonably wild start on Saturday's Criterium. I've never done this race before. All I've ever heard about it is that there tend to be a fair number of crashes, especially in the second corner where things narrow down from a couple lanes wide to a single narrow lane. In category 4 races where things never seem to get strung right out you can quickly see how a big wide pack of riders going into a narrowing corner is going to lead to problems. With 100 guys in the field, there was definitely a good opportunity for things to go really wrong.

Naturally however, the idiots that are out there are always able to throw you a curveball or two. About 10 laps in there was the requisite corner two crash as it looked like a guy didn't do a good job of holding his line and the clown who was behind him had overlapped his wheel. As always, this is an easy recipe for a certain crash. What was most interesting was this guy from Citrus Valley Velo who didn't seem to be paying any attention to what was going on in front of him, didn't see the crash, and came barreling past me and others and nearly smashed into the back of the crash himself.

Not to be denied, this same Citrus Valley guy then managed to get involved in a crash right in front of the finish line. A few guys apparently weren't watching what they were doing and went right over the traffic cones that were set up in front of Ralph's announcing stage. I really can't understand how this sort of thing happens, but sure enough the Citrus Valley guy and others went over the bars and crashed right there in the home straight.

As for me, I kept it pretty cool in the field, took the odd pull and did my best to get a good finish. I was up in the top 10 with half a lap to go. As always my issues with my left foot and resulting inability to sprint with the fast guys, resulted in me dropping back into an 18th place finish. Nothing spectacular, but it was the best I could do on the day.

Fast forward to Sunday's circuit race and things got even hairier. On the menu was 11 laps of a 3.5 mile loop. As usual for road races, the course was open to traffic, so the center line rule was in "effect". i.e. if you cross the center line, you're out of the race. For some reason however, the officials did no enforcing of the rule. When this happens, it really makes things dangerous because you've got idiots shooting up the open road on the wrong side of the center line, then trying to duck back into the field. In one case a guy clipped by bars as he tried such a stunt. When I gave him a piece of my mind about it he seemed to be befuddled by why I was so concerned.

Making things even worse, there were again 100 or so riders and not a lot who were willing to work on the front. The result was points where things really bunch up and slow down. Again, prime time for a crash. I believe we had 5 on the day in the circuit race and some of them were real classics. In one case I had to try to dodge a bike as it returned to earth from 5 or 10 feet in the air. My favorite however was the moment when I turned to one of my team-mates, remarked that there were a certain number of people that were riding like idiots, and noted that there were going to be more crashes. Literally 5 seconds later 3 guys went over the bars right in front of us.

I managed to keep it safe and get through all the crashes okay. With a couple turns to go I again got up near the front, but the result of the sprint was even worse than the day before. In this case I was going as hard as I could and people were streaming past left and right. In the end I came through in 31st. A very demoralizing result.

Days like these really make me question why it is that I race:

1. 5 crashes in the circuit race, 2 crashes in the crit.
2. My inability to put out the sort of speed that everyone else can means that even though I have as good or better of an engine as everyone else, work my tail off, etc.; it counts for nothing because at the end of the race they leave me in their dust.

When you consider these two points together, you begin to question whether the risks that are associated with racing are surpassed by the benefits. When the results are mediocre, why put yourself through the risk of racing?

The bottom line for me in all of this is that I need to figure out whether there is something I can do to overcome the issues I have with my left foot. If the answer is no, it only makes sense to bring the curtain down on my racing "career".

Stay tuned as I have some ideas in the pipeline regarding some tools that might help me do better despite my foot.

Yes, I'm Still Alive

I've kinda dropped off the radar for the past few weeks.

The evening after the Roger Millikan Criterium I started to feel sick. I then spent the following week in bed with the flu.

The next week I started to feel a little better. That next weekend I headed out to Vegas for the Southern Nevada Stage Race, which turned out to be a disaster. I didn't do very well in the morning time trial (4 miles up hill), but that wasn't such a big deal as the road race was to follow. The road race went really poorly however. Bad enough that with 20 miles to go I pulled out of the race. I was having a hard time doing anything and feeling quite weak. I knew that there was no way I was going to put in the last 20 miles, so I called it a day.

I spent last week taking it easy and getting healthy. I'm starting to feel a lot better. My plan is to get back into full training this week, go race Murrieta next weekend and then try to build my aerobic endurance back up for some of the races to come.

When I spend time away from cycling for a while like this I always find that I start to question exactly why I spend so much of my time on riding. I definitely love to ride my bike. With the struggles I continue to have with getting my left leg working, I do question whether I'm wasting my time on the racing. More on this after Murrieta.